In the construction of buildings, cladding elements such as girts, purlins, panels, roof elements, rain walls etc. are often attached to structural building elements such as walls, roofs or other supporting elements such as pillars, studs, etc.
Such a known wall or roof arrangement (assembly) is shown in FIG. 4, which corresponds to FIG. 1 of CA 2 763 058 A1.
In FIG. 4 the wall assembly includes an inner wall panel 2 held in a spaced apart relationship to an outer wall panel 3 by a metal stud 4, thereby forming an interior space 5. The outer wall 3 is covered by an exterior wall cover 3a. A steel spacer 70 is attached to the outer wall 3 and the metal stud 4 using screws 71. A C-girt 72 is held at the opposite free end of the spacer 70 spaced apart from the outer wall 3. A cladding component such as a wall panel 7 is attached to the C-girt 72. Insulating material 6 is inserted into the insulation space IS between the outer wall 3 and the cladding wall 7.
The steel spacer 70 is usually screwed into the metal stud 4. Therefore, the thermal insulation properties of the assembly are poor, because the steel spacer 70 acts as a heat conductor through the insulating material IS, thereby defeating the purpose of providing the insulation material.
The modified spacers shown in FIG. 5 were proposed in CA 2 763 058 A1. These spacers are disclosed as being made from an insulating material such as fiberglass-reinforced polymers using pultrusion techniques.
As shown in FIGS. 5A-5C, a first spacer 80 according to CA 2 763 058 comprises a base (flange) 81 configured to be attached to the outer wall 3. Two side walls 82, 83 extend in parallel to each other and perpendicular from the flange 81 (and thus also perpendicular to the exterior wall 3 in the final assembled state), thereby forming a web.
At the end of the side walls 82, 83 opposite to the flange 81, a support member (wall) 84 extends into a first flange portion 85, which is parallel to the flange 81. A second flange portion 86 is provided in parallel to the first flange portion 85, thereby forming a slit 87 therebetween. The two flange portions 85, 86 and the slit 87 together form a guide 88. Screw holes 89 are defined in the flange 81 and the wall 84 and are aligned to form a fastener path, which will be explained further below. The holes 89 are shown in FIG. 5B in dashed lines. As can be seen from FIGS. 5B and 5C, the guide 88 serves to hold a Z-girt 8, which in turn serves to mount a cladding wall 7. The Z-girt 8 is affixed to the spacer 80 using screws 9, which are inserted through the holes 89 and then connected to the wall structure 3, 3a, 4, 5.
An alternative embodiment of the spacer 80′ described in CA 2 763 058 A1 is shown in FIG. 5D, where the integral guide 88 of FIG. 5A is replaced by a separate guide 90 configured to be attached to the spacer 80′ using a screw 95 that will be screwed into hole 88h. The guide 90 comprises flanges 91, which again form a slit for inserting a Z-girt. The flange 90 also comprises holes 92 to be aligned with holes 89.
In the embodiments shown in FIGS. 5A and 5D, the interior space between the side walls 82, 83 has a width that is much larger than the diameter of the screw holes 89, through which the screws 9 will be inserted.
Further spacers for wall claddings are known from US 2008/0155917 A1, US 2008/0168723 A1 and U.S. Pat. No. 8,127,507 B1.